Review of Main Points from the Previous Part In the previous section, we learned specific "tricks" of negotiation—methods to make dealers feel they will definitely make money.

  1. Correcting common misconceptions (searching for promotion "secrets"), briefly describing common channel promotion and consumer promotion methods and precautions.
  2. Detailed explanation of 7 specific techniques for communicating launch plans.
  3. Using a launch plan communication example to give everyone a more specific, clear, and intuitive understanding. This section will learn how to break through common dealer problems and doubts. Practical Action Training: How to Crack Dealer Cooperation Willingness Barriers Through the previous 9 lectures, we have learned the essence of manufacturer-dealer relations, ideas for dealer selection, standards, evaluation tools, action decomposition processes, and specific communication techniques to promote dealer cooperation enthusiasm. Even after doing all the above, dealers often still have some common doubts. Here are examples to illustrate coping methods: One: How to achieve cash sales in an industry where credit sales are prevalent From a macro perspective, the habit of credit sales marks the backwardness and primitiveness of the industry and enterprise competition mechanisms. Credit sales can cause: · Dealers do not purchase with cash, so they have no pressure and are not active in promotion; · Dealers may stockpile large quantities and then dump products everywhere. It may also cause a large amount of expired returns, and some dealers may maliciously sell at low prices to cash out. · With payment in the dealer's hands, the manufacturer cannot manage or restrict the dealer. · Bad debts and/or returns become rampant, causing the manufacturer's funds to sink, no money to do market, market position gets worse, becoming more passive in front of dealers, eventually a vicious cycle: the more credit, the deader the market; · Credit sales cause price order chaos, dealers don't make money, the result is the more they don't make money, the more they cut prices, vicious cycle: the more credit, the more chaotic prices. Currently, industries like pesticides in China still have prevalent credit sales. In these industries, if you talk about "the disadvantages of credit sales, to strive to change credit sales to cash settlement," the typical response is: "You say it lightly, if you don't offer credit, others will; without credit, you can't sell." "Doing business requires boldness; if you need to offer credit, you must. Without that boldness, how can you do business?" To me, these words always have a flavor of "If you want to practice divine skills, you must first castrate yourself"! The food and home appliance industries also had prevalent credit sales in the mid-1990s, but have now turned to cash settlement. The transformation experience of these two industries is:
  4. Don't doubt the feasibility of cash sales; don't think "everyone in this industry offers credit, if you don't, others will, and customers will leave you"—customers don't buy products, they buy profit. As long as you can make them see that this product will definitely make money, they may accept cash sales. Specific directions include: · Improve internal strength: raise the sales threshold by one centimeter, increase sales service by one meter! To do cash sales under the general credit sales situation, the company must invest funds and energy in its own image, product quality, product packaging, product variety, timely delivery, market price control, promotion and advertising support. Only then can you qualify to talk about cash sales with dealers. · Correct employee mindset, correct the wrong idea that without credit you can't sell, and set up cash sales model employees as examples and models. · Effective communication: Companies usually announce the change from credit to cash at the annual sales meeting. Before announcing the cash policy, first introduce to dealers next year's new product plans, advertising and promotion investments, attractive rebate policies, and a series of "bright prospects," so that dealers are full of confidence in next year's business, and then talk about the cash policy. · Early groundwork: When developing new markets, focus on reverse channel building, first do terminal sales (or a small amount of parallel imports), and after the product has some influence, then find a dealer.
  5. No matter how much groundwork is done, the cash policy will definitely be strongly opposed by dealers. Once the company decides to implement cash sales, it must be mentally prepared for a batch of dealers to "defect." The company must have the determination to face the pain. This process is essentially a tug-of-war between the company and dealers and the old credit sales habit—whoever is more resolute and pulls harder will win. In this process, to minimize risk, there are two common approaches: · Going from credit sales directly to cash sales is risky; consider transitioning from credit sales to cash settlement for new customers, while old customers use credit limits, and finally achieve "full cash." · For a few large accounts that account for a significant proportion of the company's sales, they are likely to jump out and lead trouble. For such customers, communicate in advance, privately discuss giving certain promotional support, and appease them to set a good example. Due to space limitations, I won't elaborate on the many detailed technical issues in the transition from credit to cash. I just want to tell peers still using credit sales: it's not "If you want to practice divine skills, you must first castrate yourself," but "If you don't castrate, you can also practice; if you have castrated, it doesn't necessarily succeed"! The transition from credit to cash has been proven in mature industries. The methods used are nothing more than the above. In this story, companies that can wake up in time, face the pain, and persist towards a virtuous cycle of cash sales will benefit immensely! Two: Common Objection Responses No matter what company, when your product, price, and policy are determined, dealer doubts also arise—well-known product dealers worry about high prices and low profits, unknown product dealers worry that you can't sell... Ask a salesperson, do you know what questions dealers will ask you?—They all know! So why don't we extract the common questions dealers ask in advance? Think, summarize, and write specific response methods—negotiation is not about eloquence, but about preparation!! Examples are as follows: Q: Your (a famous water heater brand) price is too high? A: a) The high price is justified Sales manager: Our high price is normal. You are not just buying the product; besides the product, you also get our brand, our advertising investment, our promotional support, our rebate incentive policies, and our after-sales services like timely delivery, timely replacement of damaged and defective products... You are buying a combination of all these things. The price is high, and it's high for a reason! Customer: That's true, but in reality, your price is higher than others, right? I understand the benefits and added value you mentioned, but consumers may not recognize it! What if they think it's expensive? b) High price, but not expensive! Sales manager: I understand your concern that consumers might find it expensive, but what I want to communicate is that our price is on the high side, but we are not expensive! Customer: High price but not expensive? What do you mean? Sales manager: Listen, why do I say high price but not expensive? You can't compare a Mercedes with a domestic Santana! We are higher priced than some generic brands. If you want to compare cheap, there are always cheaper generic brands, even ones for a few dozen yuan. Would you dare to take such machines? We sell at 600 yuan per unit, and there are more expensive products on the market (foreign brands A\B, domestic brands C\D). Customer: It's true that 4 brands are more expensive than you, but at least 30 manufacturers are cheaper, not to mention those "wild chicken" brands! Sales manager: That's the point. You need to compare prices within the same tier. In fact, the entire water heater industry is divided into high-end and mid-to-low-end. Above 600 yuan is the mid-to-high-end market, below 600 yuan is the low-end market. In the market above 600 yuan, competition is on marketing, brand, and service, and only a few brands compete. Below 600 yuan, hundreds of small brands are fighting a bloody price war (as shown in the figure). In recent years, you must have seen that many local small brands, because the low-end market competition is too fierce and unprofitable, also produce premium products to try to enter the high-end market, but they don't succeed. The brand image of low-end enterprises has already formed, and upgrading is not easy. On the surface, our price is high, but truly "our price is high, but not expensive"—we are entering a high-end market with relatively less chaotic competition (only a few brands compete, far less chaotic than the low-end market). And we have the most price advantage in this market. It may be a bit difficult at the beginning, but once opened, everyone will have a better time (in fact, any industry is the same—high-end markets are hard to enter but easier to make money; low-end markets are easy to enter but will inevitably have vicious competition and thin profits). Customer: What you say makes sense, but honestly, I understand these principles. I'm willing to cooperate, willing to stock, and will definitely promote well. I hope it's like you said: "It may be a bit difficult at the beginning, but once opened, everyone will have a better time"! But I'm a bit uncertain, after all, your product price is higher than most brands on the market. I'm just saying it to discuss with you! Sales manager: You don't need to worry about whether our price is expensive or not; it's not much related to you! Customer: What? Expensive or not is not related to me? Sales manager: Right, let me explain. c) Customers don't buy price, they buy profit! Sales manager: It's really not your concern whether it's expensive or not. You don't buy price; you buy money! What you should care about is not how expensive this thing is, but whether it can be sold and if there's profit, right? Customer: You're right. That's what I'm worried about. Sales manager: Good, now let's talk about how to sell this product... (Note: At this point, the salesperson has successfully dispelled the customer's doubt that the product is "too expensive" and transformed the customer's doubt into "whether the product can sell." Next, the salesperson should use the techniques learned in Section 8 to analyze with the customer how this product fits the market, how it has advantages over competitors, how there are visible sales, that the local market is the company's key market, the initial order is limited, the company strictly manages market order against parallel imports, etc.—making the customer feel that operating this product will definitely not lose money; then use the techniques in Section 9 to discuss the market development plan with the customer, igniting hope that this product will definitely "open up" and make money) Q: You are a famous brand (world-renowned beverage), but the profit is too low! A: a) Famous products must have low profits Sales manager: Low profit is right. Since ancient times, famous brand products have low profits; non-famous products have high profits! Low profit is normal! Customer: But I need to make money. You can't let dealers lose money just because it's a famous product! Sales manager: You're right, but when I say low profit, I mean unit profit. Actually, our profit is high! Customer: What? Did I hear that right? Selling a box only earns 5 mao, and you dare say profit is high? I earn 2 yuan per box selling a certain brand? b) Total profit is not low Sales manager: Although our unit profit is lower than others, don't forget our sales volume is large. A certain brand earns 2 yuan per box, but sells at most 500 boxes a month. Our product earns only 5 mao per box, but sells at least 1500 boxes a month. Calculate it, and our profit is not much lower than theirs. Also, when you sell our product, your capital turnover rate is high. If you stock 2000 boxes of other products, it might take a month to sell, but with ours, you might stock 500 boxes and turn over four times a month. So not only is our total profit not low, but our return on capital is much higher than other brands. Moreover, when you do our product, you get far more than just immediate profit; there are many indirect profits: Customer: What indirect profits? c) Famous products can give dealers more than just profit. Sales manager: First, dealing in famous products increases your creditworthiness. When other manufacturers hear that you are our dealer, they will come to you to be their dealer. We become the "Chinese parasol tree" that enhances your image and attracts "colorful phoenixes." Second, operating our products is absolutely risk-free. Quality is guaranteed, of course, and the factory won't force you to stockpile large quantities. We will do promotions to help you open the market, and we will timely monitor your inventory to help you digest slow-moving or near-expiry products. We will never let you end up with a warehouse full of unsold goods and lose money. Third, our products sell well and will bring you customers. Our office will have 2 salespeople long-term to help you bring in orders and develop the network. In the end, how do dealers make money? It's through the network. With more customers and a bigger network, you can deal in many other high-profit products to make money. Fourth, we will give you a lot of management support and training. You know yourself that in this market, you are not the strongest (in any current market in China, dealers rarely achieve true oligopoly; every place has several large players of similar strength). Why do we cooperate with you? It's because we think your thinking is good, your business philosophy is advanced, and we can think together (implication: if you don't think like us, we might not choose you). Our factory's most important criterion for selecting dealers is business awareness. We have two dealer training sessions every year. Additionally, as the office director, one of my key tasks is to train dealers and their sales teams, help them establish new management procedures and sales models, and improve together with dealers. As a world-renowned company, our office's training materials and management systems are fully open to dealers, and we welcome dealers to learn and exchange (in fact, how much is disclosed is controlled by the manufacturer's sales staff). Let's summarize: We are a famous product. I admit unit profit is low, but we have high sales volume, high total profit, high turnover rate, high return on capital, can bring you creditworthiness, help you develop network and customers, help you improve management quality, let you learn first-class management methods, and operating our products will definitely not lose money, absolutely safe. Whether such a product is worth investing energy in depends entirely on your own thoughts and trade-offs! There are many other common questions dealers ask. Here are just two examples. What do you think, students? "Good answer? Wonderful answer? Memorize the answers and use them?" Wrong! I assure you, the so-called standard answers to these two questions are definitely not suitable for your company! I want to talk about methods, not answers! Ask yourself—as a sales manager, go back and gather all salespeople, brainstorm: What questions do dealers often ask? How should these questions be cleverly answered? The answers you get will definitely be more brilliant in some aspects than Teacher Wei Qing's "so-called standard answers," and more suitable for the company. Then print the salespeople's wisdom: "Common Dealer Questions and Response Scripts" into a booklet, and force salespeople to memorize it. At first, salespeople will indeed apply it mechanically, but it won't be long before someone criticizes the script, saying "This script doesn't work; my own script is much better." At that time, congratulations, your subordinates have grown quickly. This is the secret: Negotiation lies in preparation, not eloquence. Next Issue Preview: When visiting old dealers, they already know the company's product policies well? How to communicate with old dealers? Editor's PS: The editor has selected 1067 excellent articles from nearly 1900 published on this official account, divided into 14 categories and 57 knowledge points, systematically organizing frontline marketing management content into a library for everyone to learn. From market to customers, focusing on practical combat and management, all are dry goods. Follow the official account and reply with the number "1" to browse related content.